


Join My Pack

by K_Popsicle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Cora Hale, F/F, Post-Canon, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Popsicle/pseuds/K_Popsicle
Summary: Cora is the first to knock on Lydia’s door when Lydia comes back to town.
Relationships: Cora Hale/Lydia Martin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Join My Pack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



Someone knocked on her front door, it was loud and obnoxious, a quick sharp rhythm that grated on Lydia's nerves. When she got to the door she swung it open angrily, ready to shout at whoever was interrupting her much needed research time and was blind-sided by the woman standing on the other side.

"Cora," she greeted in recognition. It had been four years since she’d seen the other woman, but the average person wouldn't forget Cora Hale, and Lydia was far beyond the average person. Then again, neither was the woman before her.

"Lydia Martin," Cora stood looking bright eyed and perhaps nervous, but none of that showed in how she held herself perfectly still. Lydia was unsure what to do with the woman before her or the implications of her being there, so she waited. People had a tendency to talk if you waited long enough, because most people wanted to fill the silence or had a point to make. It took Cora exactly seventeen seconds to start on hers, "I would like to formally invite you into the Hale Pack," she announced apropos of nothing. Lydia scowled.

"The Hale Pack has no alpha. Who would I be accepting, not to say I am accepting, this invitation from?" Lydia asked her interest piqued despite herself. She’d been out of the supernatural for the last three years of university. Focused on networking for future job prospects and keeping her research up. Then again, Cora Hale hadn’t been knocking on her door, and Cora was that kind of person you couldn’t look away from or ignore.

Cora held out her hand and in it was a small medallion with the triskelion cut neatly into the surface. "From me," she replied and to Lydia’s surprise those hard-brown eyes flared vivid angry red.

Lydia didn’t respond to the new information processing it and everything it implied. Four years without a word, and then rocking up to her doorstep with red eyes? There were a lot of ways to become an alpha, Lydia wasn’t sure which Cora had taken, but here she was and that was the problem Lydia had to address. With as little concern as she could muster she took the medallion from Cora’s outstretched hand. “I'll have to think on it, of course," she replied, and Cora smiled with sharp teeth, the corner of her mouth tilted up in pleasure.

"That's why I want you," she promised, her voice dark and promising in a way Lydia hadn't expected. Not 'we', but 'I'. Lydia closed the door in her face rather than deal with all the ways that played with her emotions and went back to her study, the medallion set on the side of the table, never out of sight, never out of mind.

Lydia wasn’t surprised to find someone outside her front door two days later, she was more surprised to find it was Danny.

"Either you got a similar invitation to mine and you’re asking for my opinions or you've already accepted it." She drawled dryly, but it was Danny so she stepped over to where he was leaning against his car rather than continuing on her morning jog. Danny was always her favourite. Smart enough to hold his own in high school, smart enough to look the other way when he needed to, smart enough not to get mixed up in all the supernatural mess she’d failed to keep out of. Though she’d hardly been given a choice in the matter.

"I've accepted," Danny shrugged as if to say 'what can you do?' the corners of his eyes crinkling, "So they sent me to follow up with you."

"Because they think I'll say yes to you?" Lydia arched her eyebrow doubtfully.

"Because Cora's running around securing the territory with Derek and no-one wants Peter talking to anyone," he replied, laid back, and open. He'd already grown into himself in high school, but Lydia was happy to see he was even more at ease with himself than he had been back then. Danny Mahealani deserved nice things.

"Especially me," she agreed.

"You'll have to tell me about that some time," Danny replied carefully, so Lydia beamed a smile at him. Her 'don't ask stupid questions' smile and his expression became a little tighter in recognition but he didn't ask. That was why they were friends for so long. Really, she'd done herself a disservice not keeping up with him after high school but she’d barely kept up with anyone from Beacon Hills. It had been a conscious choice.

"I'm only in town for semester break to add an air of mystery for all my contemporaries. I intend to return to university at the start of next semester with a new wardrobe, haircut, and maybe a tan. I don't intend to be tangled up in the supernatural again."

"Aren't you a siren, or something?" Danny asked, big eyed and curious.

"Banshee, I don't need supernatural powers to trick men to their deaths, only women." That got a smile out of Danny again.

“Killer queen,” he agreed with admiration.

"Apparently we have a new one of those,” Lydia hedged and Danny’s eyes became tight again, like he was holding in opinions. Lydia pouted at that and his expression smoothed out. He was too easy, it was lucky for him she loved him.

“Cora’s going to have to speak for herself, but whatever else is happening, she’s the same girl you knew and her intentions are good.”

“I barely knew her,” Lydia counters. But she remembers her, clearly, vividly. Alive, daring, courageous, and so so very stunning.

“Well, now’s your chance to change that.”

Lydia huffed at the push and Danny’s smile bloomed bright and pleased. “Enough about that,” she dismissed, “how fit are you? I need a running partner and I’m behind schedule.”

Danny shrugged and said, “I can keep up,” he decided, and Lydia was curious to see if that was true.

It took a week before Cora showed up at her door again but this time she wasn’t surprised. She’d dragged Danny jogging with her every morning since he’d shown up at her door, it was good to catch up and quiz him on things he shouldn’t know. He never disappointed, but he frequently mentioned Cora and the Hales as if Lydia should be invested in them. It was boring, and she made a point of telling him so at every opportunity.

It was 7am and Cora Hale was dressed in jogging gear, hair tied back in a tight pony tail and a bright smile on her face.

“I don’t appreciate people dictating who I spend time with,” Lydia announced as she stepped out and closed the door behind her.

“I gave you a week,” Cora answered as she followed Lydia down the path at a quick jog.

“A week to decide on whether I want to swear my undying loyalties to a woman I haven’t seen in four years. How did you think that would go?” Lydia asked dryly.

“I gave you a week to get used to the idea, now I’m here to persuade you.” Cora countered as they took a turn down the next street. Lydia kept the lead, Cora a half step behind easily keeping pace. It bothered her that she knew Cora could outrun her easily, that for a werewolf this kind of run was a light jog, so she pushed herself, testing her limits in a way she wouldn’t normally do for a morning jog and Cora kept with her the whole way. Even when she turned into the preserve tracing paths she’d memorised when it had been more about necessity than practice Cora was beside her.

They were still on the edges of the preserve, out of human territory and into the wilds, when Lydia felt the start of a stitch building and reined herself in. There was no point to pushing too hard, she wouldn’t prove anything that way, so she slowed her jog to something reasonable, and pulled up to stretch a little.

Cora stopped with her, watched her like a hunter eyeing off prey and Lydia ignored that. She’s had eyes on her all her life, even alpha red eyes didn’t intimidate her anymore.

“So,” Lydia started as she stretched out her hamstring, “how do you plan to persuade me? Danny must have told you I was going back to university soon.”

“Sure,” Cora shrugged, “but you’ll always come back here.” It was said with the kind of certainty that defied sense and Lydia wasn’t sure what she thought of someone being that certain of her actions. She wasn’t even that certain of her actions.

“And if I don’t?” Lydia tested.

Cora looked unconcerned, “If you weren’t going to come back, you wouldn’t have come back. But you come back every year without fail.”

“Maybe I like to visit my parents.” Lydia didn’t bother to ask how Cora knew that, assumed Cora had been instigating herself in people’s lives. It was a family thing, apparently. A Hale thing.

“Your parents are in New York and have been for over a month.”

“First of all,” Lydia interrupted with a raised hand, “you know that knowing that makes you sound creepy, which is something you werewolves seem to excel at. Secondly, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“No you don’t,” Cora agreed, “but you want to be persuaded, so I’m persuading you.”

“By telling me I’m lying to myself?” Lydia huffed at the stupidity of that.

“By telling you you belong here,” Cora replied firmly. It had so much certainty to it that Lydia felt her arguments die down. Cora seemed to realise she’d knocked the wind out of Lydia’s sails because she moved closer, fast and assured. “Let me show you,” she pleaded, “let me show you how good it could be.”

Lydia stared at the woman who’d come so close too quickly. Stared at the way her eyes were earnest and hopeful, at the way her hair had come out of its pony tail as if no part of her could or should be contained. And Lydia had a realisation that wasn’t actually the one Cora had been angling for. It wasn't entirely surprising, it wasn’t new, but it was there suddenly at the forefront of her mind.

“To be part of the Hale Pack,” Lydia checked, curious despite herself. But then, she had always been curious. It’s why she’d taken the medallion in the first place.

“To be part of my pack,” Cora corrected, and her eyes flared red. On the edges of the forest with no human noise to distract them, Lydia stared at the werewolf she’d meet those years ago. At the confidence in her, the strength, the sheer unassailable certainty of her and Lydia recognised it, knew it, remembered it from that time before. When they’d first met and she couldn’t keep her eyes off the other girl. And now here Cora was, just the same as before, but stronger, cantered, and Lydia knew she should look away but wasn’t sure she wanted to.

She’d never been one to back down from what she wanted, so Lydia rearranged her life in the span of a heart beat and faced her new plan head on.

“If you want me to join your pack you’re going to have do better than a morning jog,” she explained, leaning back against the tree, laying herself out. She could see Cora wasn’t on the same page though, even if her eyes did an automatic once over, but that’s okay she could be clear. “I suggest dinner.”

“Dinner?” Cora repeated dumbly, her moved across Lydia again, curious.

“Dinner and a movie- cliché I know, but it gets the point across.” Lydia watched the woman before her, ready to watch the idea settle in, to take her by surprise. But in the blink of an eye she was caged in by Cora’s arms and nose to nose with a predator and her cutting smile.

“Dinner, and a movie,” Cora said low and curious, “anyone would think that was a date.”

“If it’s not a date then why would I bother going?” Lydia smiled oh-so-politely back at her.

For a moment Cora’s body pressed into hers, pushing her back against the tree harder, and then Cora stepped away, reigning herself in. Lydia was mildly disappointed, but was pretty sure she could convince the other girl to do it again later.

“Tonight, I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Seven. I have a schedule to keep, beautiful women or not.” Lydia countered quickly.

“I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Do you think you’ll have time around securing your territory and recruiting half of Beacon Hills?” Lydia teased, just to see what Cora would say.

Cora stepped in close again like she had nowhere she’d rather be, “Lucky for you, my pack and personal priorities are in alignment. Only a fool wouldn’t want to secure a powerful and genius banshee for their pack, and only a fool wouldn’t want to take you on a date. And I’m not a fool.”

“That is yet to be seen,” Lydia said archly, her pulse high with flattery and anticipation. But she would see, she knew, and she wanted to see.


End file.
